The present disclosure relates to the field of panoramic imaging systems, and more particularly to a system and related methods for generating panoramic photographs and videos.
Panoramic photography, the taking of a photograph or photographs covering an elongated field of view, has a long history in photography. Perhaps the most primitive method of panoramic photography is the taking of several adjoining photos with a conventional camera and then mounting the prints together in alignment to achieve a complete panorama. Modern techniques adapt this method by using digital cameras to capture the images, and then using computer image processing techniques to align the images for printing as a single panorama.
The continuous development of digital camera technologies along with constantly increasing speed and processing power of computers have laid the foundation for digital imaging systems that are capable of acquiring image data for the automatic creation of wide to entire 360° panoramas, including both still panoramic images and dynamic panoramic movies.
Panoramic imaging solutions may include a traditional video recording and broadcasting system which requires video capturing, producing, broadcasting and/or other steps to achieve video recording and broadcasting, which takes a long time. A video recording and broadcasting equipment may only record video from a predefined angle. To acquire a panoramic video, the video recording and broadcasting equipment may be rotated to capture video from a different angle. In some aspects, multiple video recording equipment may capture video from different angles simultaneously and record simultaneously to provide for imaging stitching during an image post-processing by a computer.
Currently, panoramic imaging solutions may include the use of a multi-camera panoramic system for simultaneous imaging or video capturing. The multi-camera panoramic system may be bulky and not portable. In addition, the panoramic image or video captured by multi-camera panoramic systems may be processed by a computer and may not be an instant and real-time presentation to a user.